It's new to me. I couldn't find anything more on it online. The public notice says it is proposed by Stonehouse Village VI LLC (which was actually incorporated in 2009 according to http://www.bizapedia.com/addresses/117-CENTER-ST-EAST-LANSING-MI-48823.html). The full text of the notice is:
A public hearing will be held to consider an application from Stonehouse Village VI,
LLC for a Site Plan and Special Use Permit approval for the property at 565 E. Grand
River Avenue to construct a five-story mixed-use building with 5,041 sq. ft. of
commercial space on the first floor and a mix of one-, two-, three-, and four- bedroom
apartments on the upper floors. The property is located in the B-3, City Center District.
Also worth noting is that Lingg Brewer will go in front of the city council on the 8th again for his project across from the colorful parking ramp.
In searching for info on the Stonehouse Village project I found another proposed project from the March 25th planning commission meeting. Someone is proposing a four floor, 51 unit building with 1500 sq ft of retail space and parking on the first floor at the northeast corner of Spartan and Grand River. Next Generation Investment Properties Staff Report (pdf)
It's really crazy how quickly this "little" developments along Grand River have begun to add up into some serious increases in density while not getting much cumulative press. It's like one day the media is going to wake up, and you've going to have this seriously dense urban corridor that no one had realized how grown so much. A four-story here a five-story there and before you know it downtown EL isn't some little village student strip, anymore. It's funny, because while Grand Rapids is further again with its solid downtown revitalization, the only other bi-nodal corridor of activity like this in the state is the resurgence of downtown and Midtown Detroit. I really want to see Virg focus like he did early in his time in publicizing space west of the river. The stadium district east of the river is nice and all, but I want to see some legitimate high-rise attention given to the area around Michigan and Grand. Washington is going to do fine, but I think those parcels along Grand between Michigan and Kalamazoo could yield some major projects if marketed as such.
From everything I've seen over the past year or so, I see only good things coming for this city and at an increasing pace to boot. I too have been surprised at the pace of low rise developments along the corridor, but it hardly taps into it's potential. The Lansing area largely missed out on the pre-recession central-city boom that Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor experienced so I think there's not only a lot of pent up demand, but also a lot of desirable locations for development that haven't been touched. East Lansing in particular has stymied downtown growth for many decades and now that they've backed off on that stance it's essentially open season with a massive demand for nice apartments near campus driving development. Theses small developments are simply testing the market for what's to come.
I fully expect that this demand extends to downtown Lansing proper and we will see a high rise go up in the near future, if not several. It's just inevitable given how things are going. There's an immediate need for hotel, office, apartment and condo space in downtown Lansing, any or all of which could justify their own high rise. There's also the ever present possibility of a new building for the State or LCC and the wish for a new City Hall/police/county courts building. Along Michigan, properties on CPIX disappear shortly after they've been listed. Despite there having been many Michigan Ave properties listed fairly recently, I can only find one for sale (1716) and one for lease (2522) right now, which I think illustrates the high demand there. I say all this just to make clear that being an optimist when it comes to central Lansing and East Lansing is very well justified as is the expectation for more and higher quality and higher density development. I really feel like we're in for quite a construction boom over the coming years with the only caveat being the national economy, particularly the financial markets.
The LSJ is saying most of these will be four bedrooms. At four stories, this either means expensive family apartments, or we're talking student apartments with shared common areas. But, since it doesn't specify, I have no idea.
Generally, Stonehouse does decent stuff, so it's not a surprise. I'm glad that each property has a similar theme but different features so they don't look like clones. Some developers do do the clone thing. I think there is a brand called Skyhouse that has done the exact same high-rise in every city to get one with the only real difference being the size of the high-rise.
Yeah, I've been happy with Stonehouses stuff in the past. It's not fantastic but it's a notch above the other new apartments on Grand River, I'd say about on par with or slightly exceeding Stadium District in quality. I read that this new building will even be incorporating scrap steel from the Broad Museum in it's facade. This may end up actually being a really nice building.
Comments
A public hearing will be held to consider an application from Stonehouse Village VI,
LLC for a Site Plan and Special Use Permit approval for the property at 565 E. Grand
River Avenue to construct a five-story mixed-use building with 5,041 sq. ft. of
commercial space on the first floor and a mix of one-, two-, three-, and four- bedroom
apartments on the upper floors. The property is located in the B-3, City Center District.
Also worth noting is that Lingg Brewer will go in front of the city council on the 8th again for his project across from the colorful parking ramp.
Grand River (south) elevation:
Spartan (west) elevation:
Site plan:
I fully expect that this demand extends to downtown Lansing proper and we will see a high rise go up in the near future, if not several. It's just inevitable given how things are going. There's an immediate need for hotel, office, apartment and condo space in downtown Lansing, any or all of which could justify their own high rise. There's also the ever present possibility of a new building for the State or LCC and the wish for a new City Hall/police/county courts building. Along Michigan, properties on CPIX disappear shortly after they've been listed. Despite there having been many Michigan Ave properties listed fairly recently, I can only find one for sale (1716) and one for lease (2522) right now, which I think illustrates the high demand there. I say all this just to make clear that being an optimist when it comes to central Lansing and East Lansing is very well justified as is the expectation for more and higher quality and higher density development. I really feel like we're in for quite a construction boom over the coming years with the only caveat being the national economy, particularly the financial markets.
They mention that if approved, construction could start this summer and be complete in 12 months.